The future of content is collaborative

Ignore it or embrace it. The Web3 world is here to change the way we create content. By shifting power from a select few to consumers, brands on Web3 are no longer at the mercy of the algorithm.

Unlike Web2 media, Web3 does not come with a marketing playbook and requires consistent experimentation. It is then creatives like Straith Schreder come into the picture. As executive creative director at Palm NFT Studio, Schreder has been the go-to person for many brands. You can tell she knows your audience and she will deliver exactly what they want.

Straith Schreder is a speaker at CoinDesk’s Consensus festival in April.

Schreder is also one of the creatives behind “IRL”, a podcast that dives deep into digital media literacy. “IRL” has opened up debates on important topics, including net neutrality, free speech, disinformation and privacy. Most importantly, it consistently questions the difference between our online and offline identities.

“We can discuss the performative aspect of being online and kind of see it through this moral or amoral lens like it’s bad to perform online,” she says. “Or we can see it as something that’s liberating and powerful in creating your identity and figuring out who you are.”

In the Palm NFT Studio, Schreder has worked with names such as DC Comics (Superman!, Batman!) and Damien Hirst, the controversial British artist. Her experience with the Web3 audience has allowed Schreder to understand the changing dynamics between brands and their community members.

“I think being able to work on projects that allow us to engage with technology in a different way—in a critical way—feels creatively very exciting,” she says. “And it also feels historically important because we’re trying to look at ways we can change the dynamic relationship we have between creator and fan to build a paradigm that’s more collaborative and participatory.”

As the world of Web3 branding continues to evolve, we caught up with Straith Schreder to understand her experience in this industry.

This interview has been lightly edited.

If you had to compare the media and crypto industries, would you say they are more similar than different?

I worked quite a bit at Vice with their commercial and editorial teams. And I worked at Mozilla, an internet health platform, looking at the way technology and digital culture intersect and relate to the way we appear online and in real life. For me, decentralization is one of the most important issues and imperatives of our time. Looking at how we can use this format and use this industry to shape, sustain and nurture a resilient, creative culture is very important to me.

For marketers too, working in Web2 media has so many challenges. You have to publish on countless social platforms and you have to publish all the time. You have to choose your audience in many ways. It’s not an audience you own. And it’s not necessarily the best experience for fans either. Then I look at what is happening in the media landscape and what we can do to start building a more robust, promising and more representative media culture, I think it will happen in Web3. This led me to Palm.

You produced a podcast called “IRL” about the difference between our online and offline identities. What did you learn about yourself by doing it?

I think in many ways spending time on this issue, talking to experts about this issue through our work as with “IRL”, has changed my understanding of how we appear online. There is another artist whose work interrogates this very powerfully. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Maya Man, but looking at some sort of generative art as a way to explain and explore the way we appear online can also be very powerful. That is what her work does very well.

In truth, there is no way to be yourself online because all online spaces are so mediated. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, though, because you can express yourself in new ways and try out different identities. You have several opportunities now to find out who you are. And I think that’s a very powerful thing. So we can discuss the performative aspect of being online and kind of see it through this moral or amoral lens like acting online is bad. Or we can see it as something that is liberating and powerful in creating your identity and figuring out who you are. So there’s that part of it too.

How has your experience been working with DC? Is it difficult to reinvent a brand in Web3?

One of the things I have taken with me from that project is that there is a lot of diversity in the audience we work in, and it is very powerful to give them as many ways as possible to participate in a project. In terms of DC, we’re looking at an audience that on the surface is very much a Web2 audience. At the same time, these users, like 60% of them, came to our platform and already own crypto. So there’s a kind of mainstreaming of the technology that’s real, and that overlaps with some of these core collector audiences. I think what’s powerful is that we’ve been able to reach these existing DC collector fans, and we’ve also been able to create new fans.

One of the projects we’re working on with DC is called the Backhaul Collection, and a key feature of that project is that holders who collect this project can vote on and shape the first [non-fungible token] comical. So they contribute to the canon in a really impactful way. They are doing comics with DC for the first time. They meet the artists on Discord, and they cast the votes that decide what happens next.

Can you explain Palm’s role in Damien Hirst’s art project ‘Currency’ – and how does it feel to be part of art history?

One of the things that’s really cool about that project, like what we’ve been working with DC, is this notion of participatory artwork. Again, collecting currency is making a choice about what happens next in the path of that project. To be part of that project is to help create it, because what Hirst asked collectors to do was to make this fundamental choice about digital value – do you hold on to the NFT or decide to burn a painting?

And the fact that roughly half of people have decided to keep the digital piece tells us a lot about the power of digital ownership. So I think being able to work on projects that allow us to engage with technology in a different way – in a critical way – feels creatively very exciting. And it also feels historically important because we’re trying to look at ways we can change the dynamic relationship we have between creator and fan to build a paradigm that’s more collaborative and participatory.

Have NFTs actually helped anyone in the creative economy?

To me, that is the power and potential of NFTs. What I think NFTs can begin to do is give us the tools and language for what is possible with creativity. And that is very exciting for me. At format level, look at generative works that can create the right conditions for more people to have unique experiences with art. And to be able to put together something that is truly one of a kind, something that speaks to them, is very important.

The idea that you can compress the space between worlds feels really cool. You can have an approach to royalties and allowances that really artists first feel incredibly significant. So I think my hope is that, especially for what we’re working on as a studio, is to continue to push for what’s possible in terms of proving this as a medium that will support artists and kind of create a canvas for worlds which we can build on.

How will Web3 build trust and support with Web2 customers? Will Web2 customers be able to make the switch easily?

That is the challenge we are navigating right now as well. I think that for as many opportunities as Web2 media offers creators, brand and [intellectual property], there are still very real challenges around the cost of viewership, awareness and marketing in these areas. And I think that there are challenges for Web3 as well, but I also think that there are clear and increasingly proven strategies around how this technology can work to engage audiences and build audiences and start to build really lasting and valuable relationships between artists and fans . As the focus continues to be placed on technology and the infrastructure itself, I believe we will begin to see even more brand adoption of Web3 platforms.

If you could show someone a piece of NFT to sell them the idea of ​​Web3, what would it be?

I think one of the pieces that means a lot to me is one I own from the “Fake It Till You Make It” collection by Maya Man. It’s something that comments on a viral belief system so eloquently and means a lot to me. But maybe it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

It definitely looks like my cup of tea. I’ll check it out!